What does $100 a day on Google Ads actually buy?
A $3,000 month is the most common starting budget an Australian trade business lands on, usually because it sounds like a serious number rather than because anything produced it. This page turns it into clicks, enquiries and jobs — as a range, because a single figure would hide how much the answer moves.
The numbers, already filled in
Daily budget is set to $100 over 30 days. Cost per click keeps the calculator's own default, which is a published United States figure and is labelled as one on the input — replace it with your own account's average the moment you have one, because it is the single input that moves this answer most.
What that comes to
Updates as you type, in your browser. Nothing leaves this page unless you ask us to send you the report.
Enquiries over the period
63.3
41.9 to 131.4 across the range we have measured
Change a number and this link updates with it, so whoever opens it lands on the result you are looking at.
Spend
$3,000
$100.00 × 30 days
Clicks
360
At $8.33 each
Cost per enquiry
$47.38
At 17.6% conversion
Jobs
19
At 30% closing
Cost to win a job
$157.94
Against $1,200.00 of revenue
Send me this result
We will turn the numbers above into a PDF with your figures, the workings and what they mean — and either hand it to you here or send it over.
What to do with this
- $3,000 over 30 days buys about 360 clicks. At 17.6% that is 63.3 enquiries at $47.38 each.
- The honest version is a range: between 41.9 and 131.4 enquiries, because that is the spread of click-to-enquiry rates across our own accounts. Plan against 41.9.
- At 30% closing and $1,200.00 a job, that is 19 jobs and $22,793 of revenue — $7.60 of revenue per dollar spent. Whether that is profitable depends on your margin, which the break-even calculator handles.
- Set the daily budget and leave it alone for at least three weeks. Changing it weekly is the single most common way an account is prevented from settling.
How this was worked out
- Spend
- $100.00 × 30 = $3,000
- Clicks
- $3,000 ÷ $8.33 = 360
- Enquiries
- 360 × 17.6% = 63.3
- Cost per enquiry
- $3,000 ÷ 63.3 = $47.38
- Jobs
- 63.3 × 30% = 19
The same spend at the low, entered and high conversion rates
| Click-to-enquiry rate | Enquiries | Cost per enquiry | Jobs | Where the rate comes from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11.6% | 41.9 | $71.56 | 12.6 | Lowest across our published accounts |
| 17.6% | 63.3 | $47.38 | 19 | The figure you entered |
| 36.5% | 131.4 | $22.83 | 39.4 | Highest across our published accounts |
| 8.1% | 29 | $103.48 | 8.7 | United States median, Home & Home Improvement |
Our own rates are a range from selected work on 25 accounts we run, not a market average. The United States row is stated as United States because it is; the same figure with an Australian label would be an invention. The published US click price for the same category is US$8.33.
Where these numbers come from
Why the answer is a band and not a number
Two businesses spending the same $100 a day, in the same city, on the same trade, routinely end a month with enquiry counts that differ by three times. The click price explains some of that. The rest is what happens after the click, and the conversion rates published across our own accounts run from 11.64% to 36.48% — so any forecast that hands you one number has quietly picked a point in that range and not told you which.
The calculator below shows the low, middle and high band together. Plan against the low one. If the account lands in the middle you have a pleasant surprise rather than a shortfall, and shortfalls are what get budgets cancelled in month two.
The input that matters most is the one you do not have yet
Cost per click drives this forecast more than the budget does, and it is the number a business starting out genuinely cannot know. The default here is a published United States figure, stated as United States on the input itself, because there is no Australian equivalent with a documented method — every Australian benchmark we checked either published no methodology or admitted its figures were US data adjusted by feel.
So run the forecast at the default, then run it again 50% higher, and treat the gap as your real uncertainty. After a month of your own data, come back and put the true figure in. Everything downstream of it changes.
What $3,000 a month does not buy
Enough volume to be certain about anything in the first month. At a typical click price, $100 a day produces a few hundred clicks and a couple of dozen enquiries — a sample small enough that one quiet week looks like a failing campaign and one good week looks like a breakthrough.
It also does not buy a negative keyword list. Accounts get cheaper as they learn what not to bid on, and that learning is paid for in wasted clicks during the first weeks. Budget for it deliberately instead of being surprised by it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about working with SoudCoh
Have more questions? Let's chat!
Book a callFor a single-trade business in one city, usually yes — it is enough to produce a readable month of data, which is the real job of a first budget. It is not enough to cover several services across a metro area at once. If the money has to stretch across plumbing, drains, hot water and roofing simultaneously, each of those gets a quarter of the volume and none of them produces a number you can act on. Pick one and do it properly.
That depends on the click price in your trade and what your site does with the traffic, which is why this page returns a band. The honest process is: run the forecast at the default, run it again with a click price 50% higher, and treat everything between the two low-band figures as the planning number. Anyone quoting you a single lead count for a budget without knowing your click price or your conversion rate is guessing.
Only if the extra money buys more of the same thing rather than more things. Doubling the budget on one tightly-targeted service gets you to a readable sample faster, which is genuinely worth paying for. Doubling it to launch three more services at once gets you three more small samples and no clarity. Work backwards from a revenue target instead — the marketing budget calculator does that arithmetic.
Ask the next question
The full calculator takes any numbers you like, and these worked pages answer the questions this one tends to raise.
Worked scenario · Plumbing · Melbourne
What a plumber should spend on Google Ads in Melbourne
Work backwards from a revenue target to a monthly Google Ads budget, pre-filled with the $74.42 cost per enquiry from our Melbourne plumbing account.
Worked scenario · Commercial cleaning · Australia
What commercial cleaning leads cost in Australia
Commercial cleaning and facilities enquiries from $27.39 to $220.59 — an eight-fold spread, worked through with a published account at the cheap end.
Now do it with
your real numbers.
This page is honest about being a worked example. If you want the version built on your own account — what an enquiry actually costs you, what survives to become a job, and which part of the chain is leaking — send us the account and we will read it.